Some tears were shed as emotions ran high at Palm Desert High School on Friday evening as the school honored 2016 graduate Will Emmett, who unexpectedly died on July 24 in Texas.

Prior to the Aztecs’ football season-opener against Beaumont, administrators held a moment of silence for the former three-year starter and all-league player who friends and family members say touched the lives of many in the Palm Desert community.

The number 55 Palm Desert jersey that Will wore during high school was presented to Will’s close friends and former Palm Desert classmates, Alessandra Bresani Molfino and Anthony Fabela, on behalf of the Emmett family, who now live in Frisco, Texas, and could not be present.

Will’s mother, Margie Emmett, asked Molfino and Fabela — two of Will’s longtime friends — to step in and accept the jersey and get it to Texas.

“I was just so honored when Margie asked me to do this,” Molfino told The Desert Sun. “I cried because I was so excited. I know this would’ve made him really happy. If it wasn’t going to be his brother and his mom and his dad and sister, I’m sure Anthony and I would have been his second choice.”

Will’s legacy of being not just a great athlete but a human being who was universally loved is what Molfino said she believes will live on.

Will Emmett in 2015, versus Indio.(Photo11: Desert Sun file photos)

“He wasn’t just an amazing athlete in football,” she said, “but a great human being. He really did love a lot. He always felt all the emotions in the best possible way. If you told him something, he empathized with you. He always tried to understand what you were going through.

“I think he was such a good person to talk to that people forgot that he also had his own battles going, and his own life going on. But that was what was so great about him, that he would stop thinking about his own problems to help someone out.

“He taught a lot of people to self-love and to be proud of who they were.”

Several former Palm Desert players were in attendance Friday, including Brooks Stephenson, Manny Sepulveda and 2016 classmate Joe Caridi. Former head coach Pat Blackburn, who retired in 2016, was also present.

Current Palm Desert players and coaches stood quietly for minutes after the jersey was presented and the moment of silence had completed. Seniors on this team were freshman when Will was a senior, in 2015.

“He’s never going to be forgotten,” Molfino said. “He’s going to be right next to us like our guardian angel.”